Psychotherapy is a systematic treatment method in which, during regularly scheduled meetings, the therapist and patient discuss troubling problems and feelings. The therapist helps patients understand the basis of these problems and find solutions. Depending on the extent of the problem, treatment may take just a few sessions over one or two weeks, or many sessions over several years. 

There are many types of psychotherapy. These are psychotherapies that help patients change behaviors or thought patterns, psychotherapies that help patients explore the effect of past relationships and experiences on present behaviors, psychotherapies that treat troubled couples or families together, and more treatments that are tailored to help solve other problems in specific ways.

A therapist is a trained practitioner. They may be psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, counsellor and other mental health care workers.